Syrian hospital treating victims of deadly chemical attack is struck by rocket

Hospital: A Syrian doctor treats a child following a suspected chemical attack at a makeshift medical centre
AP
Chloe Chaplain4 April 2017

A rocket struck a hospital after dozens of people were killed and scores more were injured in a suspected chemical attack in Syria.

The suspected chemical attack in the rebel-held Idlib province killed 58 people on Tuesday including 11 children, opposition activists said,

And just hours later, a small field hospital in the region was struck and destroyed by a rocket, a civil defence worker in the area said.

It was not immediately clear whether anyone was killed in the second attack.

Attack: A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask
REUTERS

The Syrian Coalition, an opposition group based outside the country, said government planes fired missiles of poisonous gases on Khan Sheikhoun, describing the attack as a "horrifying massacre" and saying it was the worst since the start of the war in 2011.

Makeshift hospitals were soon crowded with people suffocating, they said.

Gas: A Syrian man is taken by civil defence workers to a small hospital in the town of Maaret al-Noman
Mohamed al-Bakour/AFP/Getty Images

Photos and video emerging from Khan Sheikhoun, which lies south of the city of Idlib, show limp bodies of children and adults. Some are seen struggling to breathe; others appear foaming or bleeding from the mouth.

The Idlib Media Center published footage of medical workers treating an unresponsive man stripped down to his underwear and hooking up a little girl foaming at the mouth to a ventilator.

Attack: A crater is seen at the site of an airstrike
REUTERS

It was not immediately clear if all those killed died from suffocation or were struck by other airstrikes occurring in the area around the same time.

The hospitals had been equipped to deal with such chemical attacks because the town was struck in one chemical attack early on in the Syrian uprising. ​

Hussein Kayal, a photographer for the Idlib Media Center, said he was awoken by the sound of a bomb blast around 6:30 a.m. When he arrived at the scene there was no smell, he said.

Mask: rescue workers described a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib
REUTERS

He told how he found entire families inside their homes, lying on the floor, eyes wide open and unable to move.

Kayal said he and other witnesses took victims to an emergency room, and removed their clothes and washed them in water. He said he felt a burning sensation in his fingers and was treated for that.

Tuesday's report is the third claim of a chemical attack in just over a week in Syria.

It came on the eve of a major international meeting in Brussels on the future of Syria and the region, to be hosted by the EU's High Representative Federica Mogherini.

There was no comment from the government in Damascus in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

Following a gas attack on the outskirts of Damascus in 2013, President Bashar Assad agreed to destroy his chemical arsenal and joined the Chemical Weapons Convention.

But there have since been questions raised as to whether President Assad had declared all weapons.

The Syrian government has consistently denied using chemical weapons and chlorine gas, accusing the rebels of deploying it in the war instead.

A joint investigation by the United Nations and the international chemical weapons watchdog determined the Syrian government was behind at least three attacks in 2014 and 2015 involving chlorine gas and that the Islamic State group was responsible for at least one, involving mustard gas.

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